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Overview of the events of 1954 in literature
Overview of the events of 1954 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1954 .
Events
January –
Kingsley Amis 's first novel, the comic
campus novel
Lucky Jim , is published by
Victor Gollancz Ltd in London.
[1]
January 7 – The
Georgetown–IBM experiment is the first public demonstration of a
machine translation system, held in New York at the IBM head office.
January 25 –
Dylan Thomas 's radio play
Under Milk Wood is first broadcast in the U.K. on the
BBC Third Programme , two months after its author's death, with
Richard Burton as "First Voice".
February –
The London Magazine is revived as a
literary magazine , with
John Lehmann as editor.
March 31 –
A. L. Zissu is sentenced in
Bucharest to life imprisonment for "conspiring against the social order". This has been a focal point in the
anti-Zionist clampdown in
Communist Romania .
[2]
May 29 – The rediscovered and restored early 17th-century
Corral de comedias de Almagro in Spain is re-inaugurated with a play by
Calderon de la Barca .
[3]
June 16 – The first public celebration of "
Bloomsday " takes place in
Dublin : writers
Flann O'Brien ,
Patrick Kavanagh and
Anthony Cronin travel in a horse-drawn coach, stopping at numerous bars to retrace the steps of the characters from
James Joyce 's novel
Ulysses .
June 22 – In the
Parker–Hulme murder case , the 15-year-old Julia Hulme, a future writer of English
historical
detective fiction as
Anne Perry , takes part in the murder of her best friend's mother in
Christchurch , New Zealand.
July 29 – The first volume of
J. R. R. Tolkien 's
epic
The Lord of the Rings –
The Fellowship of the Ring – is published in London by George Allen & Unwin.
The Two Towers follows on November 11 and publication will be completed in
1955 . By 2007, 150 million copies will have been sold worldwide.
[4]
September 1 –
Lawrence Quincy Mumford becomes the U.S.
Librarian of Congress .
September 17 –
William Golding 's first novel, the
allegorical
dystopian
Lord of the Flies , is published by
Faber and Faber in London.
September 22 –
Terence Rattigan 's two linked plays
Separate Tables is first performed, at
St James's Theatre , London.
October 30 –
John Updike 's first story for
The New Yorker , "Friends from Philadelphia", is published. He graduates from
Harvard with a thesis on
George Herbert , and begins a year's
Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship to the
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at England's
University of Oxford .
November 19 –
Brendan Behan 's first play,
The Quare Fellow is premièred at the
Pike Theatre , Dublin.
unknown date –
Jack Kerouac reads
Dwight Goddard 's A Buddhist Bible (1932, found in San Jose library), which will influence him greatly.
New books
Fiction
Children and young people
Drama
Poetry
Non-fiction
Births
January 5 –
László Krasznahorkai , Hungarian novelist and screenwriter
January 15 –
Jose Dalisay, Jr. , Filipino writer
January 29 –
Oprah Winfrey , American actress and
talk show host
January –
Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒), Chinese children's book writer and academic
February 2 –
Moniza Alvi , Pakistani-British poet and writer
March 4 –
Irina Ratushinskaya , Russian writer
May 6 –
Nicholas Crane , English writer, geographer and broadcaster
March 16 –
S. A. Griffin , American actor and poet
March 20
April 14 –
Bruce Sterling , American science-fiction writer
May 5 –
Hamid Ismailov , Uzbek writer
May 23 –
Anja Snellman , Finnish writer
June 6 –
Cynthia Rylant , American children's author and poet
June 28 –
A. A. Gill , British journalist and critic (died
2016 )
July 17 –
J. Michael Straczynski , American author
July 26 -
Michael Grant , American young-adult fiction writer
August 1 –
James Gleick , American non-fiction author
August 15 –
Mary Jo Salter , American poet and academic
August 17 –
Anatoly Kudryavitsky , Russian-Irish writer
September 14 –
Mikey Smith , Jamaican dub poet (killed
1983 )
November 8 –
Kazuo Ishiguro , Japanese-born English novelist and Nobel laureate
November 10 –
Marlene van Niekerk , South African novelist
November 11 –
Mary Gaitskill , American novelist, essayist and short story writer
November 12 –
Christopher Pike (Kevin Christopher McFadden), American children's author
December 3 –
Grace Andreacchi , American author
December 7 –
Mark Hofmann , American rare book dealer, forger and murderer
December 20 –
Sandra Cisneros , American writer
unknown dates
Deaths
January 1 –
Duff Cooper (1st Viscount Norwich), English poet, biographer and politician (born
1890 )
January 21 –
E. K. Chambers , English literary scholar (born
1866 )
January 25 –
M. N. Roy , Indian philosopher and politician (born
1887 )
February 2 –
Hella Wuolijoki , Estonian-born Finnish writer (born
1886 )
February 6 –
Maxwell Bodenheim , American poet and novelist (born
1892 ; murdered)
March 28 –
Francis Brett Young , English novelist and poet (born
1884 )
April 8
April 19 –
Russell Davenport , American journalist and publisher (born
1899 )
May 3 –
Earnest Hooton , American writer on anthropology (born
1887 )
June 18 –
Constantin Beldie , Romanian literary promoter and memoirist (born
1887 )
July 13 –
Grantland Rice , American sportswriter (born
1880 )
July 14 –
Jacinto Benavente , Spanish dramatist and Nobel laureate (born
1866 )
August 2 –
Julián Padrón , Venezuelan novelist, journalist and lawyer (born
1910 )
August 3 –
Colette , French novelist (born
1873 )
September 19 –
Miles Franklin , Australian novelist (born
1879 )
September 29 –
W. J. Gruffydd , Welsh-language journal editor (born
1881 )
October 22 –
Oswald de Andrade , Brazilian poet and polemicist (born
1890 )
November 17 –
Ludovic Dauș , Romanian novelist and dramatist (born
1873 )
December 6 –
Lucien Tesnière , French grammarian (born
1893 )
December 20 –
James Hilton , English novelist (born
1900 )
[7]
Awards
References
^
a
b Zachary Leader (2002).
On Modern British Fiction . Oxford University Press. p. 62.
ISBN
978-0-19-924933-6 .
^ Glass, Hildrun (2010). "Câteva note despre activitatea lui Avram L. Zissu". In Rotman, Liviu; Crăciun, Camelia; Vasiliu, Ana-Gabriela (eds.). Noi perspective în istoriografia evreilor din România . Bucharest: Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania & Editura Hasefer. p. 166.
^
Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia (in Spanish), vol. CXCVIII, Madrid, 2001, pp. 352–546,
OCLC
1460620 {{
citation }}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link ) .
^ Wagner, Vit (2007-04-16).
"Tolkien proves he's still the king" .
Toronto Star . Archived from
the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 2014-06-04 .
^ No. 41 in
Le Monde' s 100 Books of the Century .
Savigneau, Josyane (1999-10-15).
"Écrivains et choix sentimentaux" .
Le Monde . Paris.
^ Leitch, Vincent B.; Cain, William E.; Finke, Laurie A.; Johnson, Barbara E.; McGowan, John; Williams, Jeffrey J. (2001). "William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley". In Leitch, Vincent B. (ed.). The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism . New York: W. W. Norton & Co. pp. 1371–1374.
^ Stanley Kunitz (1955).
Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature. Supplement . H. W. Wilson. p. 353.
^ Peter Hunt (2 September 2003).
International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature . Routledge. p. 367.
ISBN
978-1-134-87993-9 .
^ Susan Weiner; Professor Susan Weiner, MS Rdn Cde Cdn (9 May 2001).
Enfants Terribles: Youth and Femininity in the Mass Media in France, 1945-1968 . JHU Press. p. 215.
ISBN
978-0-8018-6539-8 .